


Eye of the Beholder

by rhysiana



Series: Derek Hale: Landscape Photographer [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Camping, Hiking, M/M, Photographer Derek, Stargazing, Yosemite National Park
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-03-04
Packaged: 2018-09-28 05:26:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10074152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhysiana/pseuds/rhysiana
Summary: After Stiles helped Derek see his own work in a new light at the gallery opening, Derek thinks it might also be enlightening to invite him along on a photography trip to Yosemite.(Sequel to "Behind the Lens.")





	

**Author's Note:**

> "I realize I am tempting fate by posting another meet cute, but I swear this one is done. There is no more," I said at the end of "Behind the Lens." Well, clearly I am a lying liar who lies, because then the Ansel Adams exhibit came to the art museum here and I got over 8000 words of more. When will I learn not to say things like that?
> 
> Photographic inspiration for this fic, aside from Ansel Adams: [Sunrise Self-Portrait on Glacier Point](https://500px.com/photo/115753845/sunrise-self-portrait-on-glacier-point-yosemite-california-by-tanner-wendell-stewart?ctx_page=9&from=user&user_id=510057)
> 
> Also, I just managed to get this done and posted on [Yosemite's birthday](http://rhysiana.tumblr.com/post/157953860323/americasgreatoutdoors-happy-168th-birthday-to-us)!
> 
> ETA: storiesfromtheden made a [gorgeous aesthetic board](http://rhysiana.tumblr.com/post/158181720408/storiesfromtheden-but-i-think-what-he-doesnt) for this story!

The phone at the other end of the line rang. As Derek waited for it to be answered, he found himself wishing for one of those old-school telephones with cord, like his grandparents had had, so he’d have something to twist around his fingers. Which was absurd. Being nervous about this in the first place was absurd, because Stiles had never done anything but put him at ease. But he was about to change his routine, his _creative_ routine, and that was a definite risk.

 _It’s just the weekend_ , he told himself. _It’s not like you’re taking him to Patagonia for a month or something._

_Yet._

Derek looked up and glared at himself in the mirror over the desk. He really hated his own brain sometimes. “Get a grip,” he growled at his reflection.

Which was, of course, when Stiles answered the phone.

“Derek?”

Derek hadn’t actually known he could still blush that hard. He was suddenly very glad this was just a phone call. “Hi, Stiles.”

“What’s up?” Stiles asked, mercifully not questioning Derek apparently talking to himself. There was typing in the background, so he was probably distracted anyway.

“I, um, wanted to ask you something.”

“Shoot.”

“So I figured, since I’ve got to be here for a few more weeks anyway, that I’d go out to Yosemite for the weekend to shoot, and I was, uh, wondering if you’d like to go with me?”

The typing stopped. “Seriously?”

“I mean, it was just an idea, you don’t have to, I just wanted to ask…”

“No! No, that sounds awesome. Yes, I want to go.”

Derek let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “Great! Good. So I was planning to leave on Friday, but I wasn’t sure if that would work with your work schedule or…”

“Oh, don’t worry about that, I can swing it.” Derek could practically see Stiles’ hand waving off Derek’s concerns. It made him smile. “What should I bring?”

“Just clothes. Good hiking boots.” He winced; he sure hoped Stiles already had those and wouldn’t be trying to break in new boots… Maybe he should stop catastrophizing. “I’ve got everything else. Er, I was planning to camp.” Why had he thought this was a good idea? He’d worked hard to find a way to make a living with as little contact with other people for a reason.

“Yeah, sure, that’s cool. I haven’t been camping in forever, but I’m sure you’ve got it down to a science.”

Derek’s shoulders relaxed again. “I’ll text you when I’ve got the car packed on Friday and then come pick you up, yeah?”

“Sounds good! I guess I’d better get back to work now, though, so I can take Friday off.”

“Yeah. See you Friday.”

“See you then! This’ll be fun!”

***

It didn’t take Derek long to pack his SUV. He could probably pack the Toyota in his sleep at this point. He knew exactly how all his gear boxes stacked, where to wedge the tent so it wouldn’t move and would still be in the right place to grab without looking when he got to the campsite. Honestly, at this point the only thing he worried about was the day he inevitably had to get a new car and would then have to perfect his system all over again. Hopefully that wouldn’t happen for quite a few more years.

He slammed the rear door and headed out to pick up Stiles. Everything would be fine.

He felt the corner of his mouth turn up as he pulled up in front of Stiles’ building and found him already standing on the sidewalk out front, bouncing on his toes. He waved as soon as he saw Derek’s car and reached down to pick up his backpack.

“Hi!” he said as he opened the rear door to throw his backpack in. His eyebrows rose at the stacks of stuff in the trunk. “Wow, you really are prepared.”

Derek shrugged as Stiles settled himself in the passenger seat. “Lots of practice.”

He’d been vaguely worried that Stiles would find him too quiet as a car companion, but it quickly became clear that, just like on all their dates thus far, Stiles was perfectly happy to carry the conversation on his own. In the car, though, he appeared more willing to let silence (or at least music) occasionally reign, taking in the passing scenery with interest. When he rolled down the window to let his fingers play in the slipstream of air while he tilted he face up into the sun, Derek found himself wishing for the camera in the back seat, even though it didn’t have remotely the right lens on it.

He was so lost in his thoughts about the possible merits of portraiture after all, he apparently missed Stiles asking him a question. He blinked when Stiles poked him in the shoulder. “Hmm?”

Stiles grinned at him. “Oh man, am I seeing an artist at work here?”

Derek could feel his ears heat up. “Shut up.”

Stiles laughed. “I just asked why you were out here for so many weeks. I mean, not that I mind! I wouldn’t have gotten to ask you out _multiple_ times otherwise, but I got the impression this is unusual for you.”

“Oh. Yeah. Laura set up a whole bunch of meetings for me, probably because she thought it’d make it impossible for me to skip out on that opening.”

“Laura is my new favorite person.”

Derek rolled his eyes, but his mouth twitched in a small smile nonetheless. “ _Anyway_ , I have a bunch of meetings with a, uh,” he caught himself before he could jinx the deal, “hiking apparel company to do a photography series for their next catalog and ad campaign and stuff.”

Stiles twisted in his seat and leaned back against the door so he could look more directly at Derek. “But you don’t really do people.”

“That’s what I said. But they don’t want that, they want landscapes. They want to send me down to South America, do a bunch of shooting in the Andes.”

“Seriously? That’s amazing!”

Derek fought the urge to duck his head; he was driving, after all. “I hope it will be. I still have to find out exactly what they want, if they want products featured in any of the shots anywhere. I dunno, apparently they also sponsor climbing teams and stuff, too, so I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be going in conjunction with other people, or if it’s more my usual kind of thing.” He shrugged again, trying to look nonchalant.

Stiles noticed, though, of course. He was giving Derek a rather piercing look when he risked a glance over. “Have you ever been asked to do something like this before?”

“No, not really. I’ve done location series before, obviously, but I always paid my own way and then figured the pictures would end up paying for it after. It’s worked out so far.”

“I’m sure that’s an understatement. I’ve seen your photos.”

More than just Derek’s ears felt hot now. He kept his eyes firmly on the road.

“Awwww,” Stiles cooed. “Are you always this bad at taking compliments?”

Derek tried to scowl, but he had a feeling it wasn’t very convincing.

“Seriously, though, that sounds like an amazing opportunity. And I’m sure the pictures you take will be stunning. You do mountains really well.”

That was a compliment Derek could take. “Thank you.”

And then something else caught Stiles’ eye and the conversation turned mercifully away from Derek himself.

***

Stiles was enthusiastic about helping set up their campsite, but it had clearly been quite some time since he’d last set up a tent.

“Stiles, can you, uh, maybe just sit over there? I’ve just set this thing up a million times, I’ve kind of got a method…”

Stiles just laughed and went to perch cross-legged on top of the picnic table. “Oh my god, you should see your face. Did it hurt to try to find a polite way to phrase that? Did you strain something?”

Derek flipped him off and got the tent set up in under ten minutes. Stiles applauded when he was done. “Okay, I admit it, I’m impressed. Did you earn _all_ the merit badges?”

Derek coughed. “I might have been an Eagle Scout, yes.”

Stiles looked delighted. “This explains so much about you.”

“Shut up.”

“Let the ‘courteous’ part of the pledge lapse, huh?”

Derek contented himself with an eye roll and went to find the sleeping bags.

“So what’s the plan?” Stiles asked when Derek declared the campsite set up enough for the moment and came over to the picnic table.

Derek spread a map out in front of him. “I don’t really plan to do much work today. I figured we’d just get set up, walk around a bit, make a plan for the rest of the weekend.”

“Sure.”

“So we’re here,” Derek pointed at the Upper Pines campground on the map, “because so many trailheads are along the Yosemite Valley roads. If you want to this afternoon, we can do Mirror Lake, because it’s pretty easy, especially just to the lake and back. That’s just really to stretch our legs after being in the car. Nothing I really plan to shoot there.”

Stiles peered at the map with interest, then looked up at Derek. “How many times have you been here?”

Derek shrugged. “We used to come a lot as a… as a family when I was growing up. As a photographer? Just twice so far. It’s kind of a landscape photographer requirement.”

“Ah.” Stiles nodded. “Ansel Adams.”

Derek wondered if Stiles would have gotten that reference before they met, or if he’d been looking things up because of him. He could never really tell with Stiles. The thought warmed him nonetheless.

He cleared his throat. “Anyway, tomorrow I wanted to do Four Mile.” He pointed at the map again. “It’ll be basically all day, so we’ll need to leave really early, like around 5? I’m hoping to catch a good sunrise.”

“Oh my god, you photographers are insane.”

Derek looked up at him, worried, but Stiles’ face clearly said he was teasing.

“C’mon, Derek, I know this is work for you. I want to see what you do. I’m not going to complain about getting up early one time.” He quirked a wry smile. “Well, I might complain tomorrow. But I can’t be held responsible for anything said pre-caffeine.”

“I did bring coffee.”

“Smart boy.”

Derek snorted and folded the map back up. “You ready?”

Stiles unfolded himself and hopped down from the picnic table with a grin. “Sure.”

“Just let me grab my camera and we’re good.”

***

The walk out to Mirror Lake was easy and paved, so Derek spent a great deal more time watching Stiles look at things than his own feet. Which was probably why he answered without thinking when Stiles bumped shoulders with him and asked, out of nowhere, “So why’d you want to bring me along? You could clearly get a lot more done if I wasn’t here.”

“I’m trying something new.”

Stiles arched an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

Derek blinked, marshaling his thoughts. “Oh. Um. So you know Yosemite has been done over and over, right? Even by me?”

“Yeah?”

Derek could feel his face heating up again. “Well, you always see things differently. And you make _me_ see things differently. It was the first thing you did when we met. So I thought maybe if I brought you here, I’d see something new.”

Stiles stopped walking and turned to look at him with wide eyes, mouth parted. “I—” He swallowed. “Wow.” And then he grabbed Derek by the front of his shirt and pulled him in for a kiss in the middle of the path. “I think that’s maybe the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” he said, resting his forehead against Derek’s.

Derek raised a hand to brush a thumb lightly over Stiles’ cheekbone. “It’s true.”

Stiles didn’t let go of his hand the rest of the way to the lake. When they got there, there was just enough of a breeze to ruffle the surface of the lake and prevent it from being a perfect reflection, but watching Stiles sit on a rock and gaze up at the mountains, Derek found he didn’t care.

***

Stiles laughed at him for having brought everything for s’mores, but he ate three, so Derek was now smiling smugly at the remains of their campfire while Stiles lay on his back and complained about being too full.

“Hey, Derek?”

“Hmmm?”

“If your family went camping here all the time, why was Lydia’s gallery a new market area for you? Isn’t California home?”

Derek froze.

Stiles pushed himself up on his elbows and looked at him. “What? What did I say?”

“Nothing. I mean, you didn’t know. I don’t… I haven’t come back to California very often since… since Laura and I moved to New York.”

Derek could feel Stiles’ attention on him, but he stayed quiet.

“There was a fire. When I was sixteen, actually, not long after I made Eagle Scout, which isn’t something I’d thought about in forever.” Derek felt his mouth twist in a pained thing that might have been a smile and he poked the coals of the fire with his marshmallow stick. He watched sparks rise into the sky. “Our house burned down with our parents and our little sister inside. We were the only ones left. I didn’t come back to California for nearly ten years.”

Stiles sat all the way up and hugged his knees to chest. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“I only came back to the parks, though. I never try to go back home. At least we were always happy here. That’s what the first trip was, really. My therapist told me it would be a good idea.” He shrugged. “I don’t know that that was really true, but at least with my camera, I could concentrate on trying to get the perfect picture. Everything from that trip came out quite good, from a technical perspective. They sold well.”

Stiles rested a hand tentatively on his shoulder. He leaned into it ever so slightly, but then got up and doused the remnants of the fire. He fell asleep listening to Stiles breathe in the sleeping bag next to him. It was a deeper sleep than he’d had in Yosemite since the fire.

***

The alarm on his phone woke him at 4 a.m., vibrating under his pillow. As quietly as possible, he unzipped his sleeping bag, pulled on a sweatshirt, and squeezed out of the tent through the smallest opening he could get away with. Stiles managed to sleep through it all. Derek unlocked the car and pulled out the camp stove and now slightly battered insulated metal French press. He’d promised Stiles coffee, after all.

Once that was going, he set about making some oatmeal to go with it, plus throwing together some sandwiches for lunch. As he started digging through his kitchen box for trail mix and dried fruit and other easy things to toss in his backpack, Stiles stuck his head out of the tent flap, hair sticking out in every direction.

“Oh my god, it’s still the middle of the night.”

“It’s 4:15. If you get dressed and come out, you get coffee.”

Stiles’ head promptly disappeared. He emerged a few minutes later in cargo pants and a fleecy hoodie, boots on his feet but still untied. Derek poured him some coffee and put it and a bowl of oatmeal in front of him. “Eat. Drink. I’m going to get dressed.” Stiles just grunted in response, hands already wrapped around the mug and face in the steam.

Derek changed quickly, then ate his own breakfast in bites between organizing his gear, which honestly didn’t take that long. He checked on Stiles and found him staring blankly at the wood grain of the picnic table, so he poured him a second cup of coffee and went to fill their water bottles.

By the time he got back, Stiles looked more alert.

“Where’d you go?”

Derek set a ruby red water bottle on the table next to his elbow. “Water.”

Stiles picked it up, then looked at the dark gray one in Derek’s other hand. “You don’t really strike me as a red kind of guy.”

Derek ducked his head. “That one’s for you.” When he glanced up, Stiles was staring at him in surprise.

“I am not awake enough to process this cuteness right now. I’ll have to get back to you later, when the sun is actually up.”

Derek repressed a smile. “C’mon, let’s get going.”

Stiles spent the drive to the trailhead dumping his clothes and toiletries out of his backpack and repacking it with the food. When Derek tried to object, Stiles waved him off. “You’ve got all your camera stuff. This is just fair.”

The sky was just starting to lighten as they hit the trail, which was fortunately wide, well-kept, and fairly straight at this point. Derek fished small flashlights out of his pack and handed one to Stiles so he wouldn’t trip over anything, though he doubted they’d really need them for long. Stiles was remarkably quiet, as if he too was reluctant to break the pre-dawn stillness, but as the sky grew brighter and he needed to spare less attention for where he was putting his feet, Derek could see him looking around with greater interest.

“There’s all kinds of interesting moss on the rocks around here,” Derek said quietly. “Maybe some early wildflowers. We’ll get to see them on the way back.”

“Cool,” Stiles replied with a smile, craning his head back to look at the tops of the trees above them.

After about a mile, they rounded a switchback and Stiles gasped as they got a view of Yosemite Falls. “Oh my god, Derek. This view!”

“I know,” Derek agreed, focus entirely on Stiles.

Stiles glanced over and noticed. “You’re not even looking!”

Derek gave a half shrug. “I’ve seen that before. I’ve got something better to look at right now.”

Stiles blushed and shoved at his shoulder. “Some landscape photographer you are.”

Derek checked the sky and smiled. “Nah, I just knew what was coming.” He nodded back at the falls as the first golden glow touched the top.

“Oh,” Stiles breathed.

Derek started shooting.

They didn’t actually spend too long at the first overlook, Derek wanting to see what could be made of the light in the other direction, too. Stiles laughed and then ran along the switchbacks, teasing Derek for being slow when he was the one supposedly in a hurry. But what Derek really wanted was Stiles’ reactions to each new view revealed, and, watching Stiles’ expressive face, he wasn’t disappointed.

All too soon, the sun was indisputably risen, though, and Derek slowed them to a more sustainable pace. “It can get really boring hiking with a photographer,” he warned. “I tend to stop at weird times if something catches my eye, so you should feel free to go ahead, double back, whatever.”

“Funny, I thought the point was to spend time with you,” Stiles said, bumping their shoulders together.

As it turned out, Derek just ended up letting Stiles choose where they stopped along the way. He may not have thought about it in the same way, but he turned out to have a pretty good instinct for eye-catching views. Not that the trail made it hard; that was why Derek had chosen it in the first place, and the views only got better the further up they went.

They stopped halfway up for trail mix and water and the second main view of the falls, this time from a more panoramic perspective. Derek couldn’t resist taking a few shots with Stiles taking everything in from the edge of the frame. He had zoomed in on one image with his camera’s display screen, checking the sharpness of the waterfall in the distance, when Stiles turned around and leaned back on the overlook fence to face Derek.

“Did you always know you wanted to be a photographer?”

“God, no. I took a photography elective in high school, after we moved to New York, basically because I didn’t want anything that seemed hard or required me to talk to people. I was just trying to survive until graduation. And then it turned out to be interesting.”

“Were you a natural?”

“Not really. I wasn’t terrible, but I wasn’t great. But the teacher was really good at teaching us the technical basics, so it gave me a good foundation to build from.” He looked back down at the camera in his hands and felt his mouth twist in something that wasn’t quite a smile. “And I may have discovered that summer that as long as I had a camera, Laura’d let me wander around by myself for hours. Once you hold a camera up to your face, it’s like you become invisible. People don’t try to talk to you. They go out of their way to give you space, usually.”

“It gives you distance,” Stiles noted.

“Yeah. Which I needed then. And then I just wanted it. I went to college for it for a while, actually, but after the first summer that I spent traveling on my own and came back with a pretty decent portfolio of work, Laura started getting people asking if they could buy prints. She handled all of that; she’s far better with people.”

“Shocker,” Stiles murmured.

Derek shot him a mild glare and got them started back up the trail. “I made it through one more year of school, but then when I started planning the next summer’s trips, I couldn’t really think of a reason to go back when the summer was over. I could do this. I was already doing it. If it didn’t work out, there wasn’t any reason I couldn’t go back to college later.” He shrugged. “And I’ve been doing it ever since.”

“Still,” Stiles said, “it’s pretty amazing that you were able to figure out something that would make you happy and then actually turn it into a viable career. I just feel like I’ve been… cobbling together a life.”

Derek glanced over at him. “What do you want to be doing?”

Stiles shrugged. “That’s just it. I don’t really know. I thought for a long time I’d go into law enforcement like my dad, but… it didn’t really fit. I like researching things, you know, figuring things out, but that’s not really what most of that job is. I kind of fell into technical writing by accident. It’s boring, but it pays, and I can take days off to do things like go hiking with you, so I can’t complain. And I can use my free time to help Lydia at the gallery and babysit Scott’s kids sometimes and, you know,” he waved a hand, “stuff.”

“But what do you do for yourself?” Derek asked curiously.

“Uh, read?” Stiles was clearly not content with this answer, frowning to himself, gaze turned inward. Derek left him to his thoughts, knowing he personally wouldn’t really want inept and awkward attempts at advice on this subject. Stiles’ silence wasn’t cold, though, and soon enough he was absorbed by the scenery again.

When they finally reached Glacier Point, Derek sent Stiles ahead. “It’s one of my favorite places,” he said, “but I’ve been here a lot, so I have some specific shots in mind. Go explore. We’ll be here a while.”

“Sure,” Stiles said, ambling off. Derek watched him go for a few seconds, the sleeves of his hoodie pushed up, looking happy and relaxed again. He smiled softly and set about getting out his tripod for some true panorama shots. He was rarely happy with how they came out when stitched together, but it was always interesting to try. After the first batch, he switched to a wider angle lens and started settling into his more usual professional mindset. And then he caught sight of Stiles.

He’d made his way out to the rock that appeared to overhang the entire valley, as Derek had suspected he would. That was it. That was the image for this trip. Stiles standing right out on the edge of the rock, looking out over the valley in awe, Half Dome clearly recognizable but below him, not dominating the image for once, nearly blending into the impressiveness of the overall vista.

He’d finally found an image that captured how he felt whenever he was here.

Stiles had been right, that first night in the gallery. Sometimes a landscape needed a human figure in it to really show the wonder.

He was still caught up in that thought when Stiles hurtled back down to where Derek was standing, throwing his arms around him in exhilaration.

“Derek! Did you see? Have you stood out there? You can see _everything_!”

Derek grinned at him and wrapped an arm around his waist. “I saw. I told you it was one of my favorite places.”

“It’s amazing!” Stiles leaned forward and kissed him. “Thank you for bringing me here.”

“Thanks for coming with me,” Derek replied, and hoped Stiles could hear how much he meant it.

***

Later, all Derek could remember of the hike back down was a slideshow of sun-filled moments, only some of which he actually caught on camera, a thing that took him by surprise when he finally got all the pictures from the trip downloaded. It had been a long time since he had just wanted to experience something without the comforting barrier of a lens between him and the world.

When they got back to the lower trail again, Derek was halfway expecting Stiles to express disappointment that the views had dwindled back down from stunning to normal, but instead he bounced happily from one side of the trail to the other, examining the moss-covered rocks and early flowers.

“Okay, Mr. Famous Photographer, teach me a thing,” Stiles said, handing Derek his phone.

Derek raised an eyebrow.

“Show me how to, like, frame things. Take my Instagram game to the next level. Help me make Isaac mad with envy.”

Derek smirked at him. “Uh-huh.” But he obligingly wrapped his arms around Stiles, hooked his chin over Stiles’ shoulder, and talked him through some macro shots of moss, or at least as good as he could get with his unmodified phone, for the next few minutes. When Stiles took the phone back in his own hands to try to follow Derek’s instructions, Derek just folded his arms around Stiles’ waist and admired the way his fingers manipulated the phone’s screen.

“My, what an innovative teaching technique you have, Mr. Hale,” Stiles murmured, turning his head to kiss Derek’s cheek.

Derek turned into it and kissed him more fully. “You seemed like a highly distractible student. I had to keep your attention somehow.”

“Oh, my attention was _very_ focused,” Stiles said with a suggestive eyebrow waggle.

Derek laughed.

Stiles beamed at him. “I could stand to hear more of that.” He held the phone up again and reversed the camera. “Smile!”

And for once, Derek had no problem doing so.

***

Thanks to their early start, it was still mid-afternoon when they got back to their campsite.

“What’s next?” Stiles asked.

“I don’t have anything planned until after dinner,” Derek said. “I figured you might want a nap.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Stiles said fervently. “I can’t believe you got me up at ass o’clock.”

“Your sacrifice has been noted.”

Stiles unzipped the tent flap and grinned up at him as he sat at the entrance to take off his boots. “Nah, it was worth it, I can admit it.”

“Good.” Derek wondered if Stiles could hear his hope that Stiles would want to do it again sometime, maybe many more times, contained in that single syllable. He concentrated on untying his own boots rather than look at Stiles’ face for some imagined clue.

When he stretched out on his sleeping bag, Stiles immediately scooted over and laid his head on Derek’s shoulder, throwing an arm and a leg across him as well. Derek let his hand come up to play with Stiles’ hair, for which he received a contented hum before Stiles’ breath evened out and his body relaxed. Derek reached out and unzipped the window panel next to him for some breeze before he followed Stiles down into sleep.

***

He was awoken a few hours later by a kiss on the cheek. He opened his eyes to Stiles’ clear honey-brown gaze just inches away.

“Hi,” he said, voice still rough with sleep.

“Hi,” Stiles replied, and leaned in to kiss him properly this time.

Derek smiled into the kiss and deepened it with interest, sucking on Stiles’ lower lip ever so slightly to elicit a small moan.

“Derek, we’re in a tent.”

“We are.”

“In a campground. With other people.”

“Also correct.”

“In the daytime.”

“Your observational powers know no bounds.”

Stiles buried his face against Derek’s shoulder. “I’m just saying, maybe this isn’t the best idea.”

Derek grinned lazily down at the top of his head. “You started it.”

Stiles shifted against Derek’s thigh in a pointed manner. “I did. I regret that now.”

Derek lifted his chin and kissed him again. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Okay, maybe ‘regret’ isn’t quite the right word…” A car door slammed nearby, underlining Stiles’ original objection, and he thunked his forehead back onto Derek’s shoulder, groaning.

Derek laughed. “What time is it?”

Stiles flailed his hand around beside him until he found his phone. “Almost 6.”

Derek rolled them over, gave Stiles one last deep kiss, and then pushed himself up. “Time for dinner.”

“Dinner?! That’s how you tell me it’s time for dinner? I’m getting some very mixed signals from you, Hale.”

Derek just smirked and pulled his boots on. Stiles flopped back onto the sleeping bags with a huff.

Soon enough he joined Derek at the picnic table, though, red water bottle in hand, and watched Derek open cans and throw together their meal without thought. “I have to say, this is much better than the pouch meals I was expecting.”

Derek shot him a mildly scathing look. “Please. For a weekend trip to a campground with access to facilities and my car? No.”

“So what are you making?”

Derek looked down at the pot and stirred. “Uh. I don’t think it has a name. I just made it up. I’ve probably made it hundreds of times now, and it always comes out reliably edible.”

“Wow, there’s an endorsement!”

“Shut up. I do images, not words.”

Stiles grinned at him.

Derek’s phone buzzed and he dug it out of his pocket. He scowled when he saw he had an email from Laura. If it was something important, she’d have called; emails just meant work. “Oh for the days when parks still had shitty cell coverage,” he muttered.

Stiles leaned over the table, curious. “What is it?”

“Email from Laura.”

“What about?”

Derek sighed and thumbed open the message. When he read it, he groaned. “Perfect.”

Stiles raised his eyebrows expectantly.

“They want an artist’s statement.”

“Okay, leaving aside the issue of which ‘they’ this is,” Stiles said, twisting the lid of his water bottle open and closed absently, “isn’t that something you’ve done a bunch of times before, at this point?”

He finally opened the bottle and took a drink, which Derek found sufficiently distracting to be able to answer without grimacing. “Yeah, it just always feels like pulling teeth to come up with anything.”

Stiles looked surprised. “But it’s your passion! I know you have lots of thoughts about it. I just spent all day watching you.”

“Sure, but…” Derek blew out an exasperated breath. “I don’t know how to talk about it. I can answer technical questions about how I took a given picture, but ask me what I was thinking when I took it? Or worse, what I was _feeling_? Fuck, I don’t know. Nobody wants to hear that I was wondering whether my ISO was too high.”

“Hmmmm,” Stiles hummed thoughtfully, gaze unfocused, fingers tapping on the tabletop. He blinked a few times. “I could help, if you wanted.”

Derek snorted at the idea he’d turn such an offer down. “I will absolutely take all the help I can get for this. The last time I wrote one, the gallery didn’t even end up using it.”

Stiles straightened up confidently. “Nah, man, I got you.”

Derek gave their dinner one last stir, switched off the camping stove, and dished it up. “Here.”

“Ooooh, delicious no-name food!” Stiles blew on it for a second, then shoveled in a bite. Derek watched him for a reaction. Stiles grinned. “You’re right, it’s edible.”

Derek kicked him lightly under the table. Stiles looked distinctly unrepentant.

“So what did you have planned for after dinner? You said you didn’t have any plans until after dinner earlier, which implies that there _is_ a plan for after dinner, so…”

“Well, not for immediately after dinner. Sunset isn’t until about 8, and I could try to get some good golden hour pictures before that, but I thought it might be fun to do some night sky photography?”

Stiles’ eyes lit up. “Really? You know how to do that? I mean, I should probably know that you know how to do that, but I’ve always thought those kinds of pictures looked so cool, and I never knew how it was done.”

Derek tried to repress a smile at how eagerly enthusiastic Stiles was about apparently any new experience.

“Well, to do that, we just have to wait until it gets fully dark, but before the moon comes up, which will be…” he consulted his phone, “around 2:30 a.m. today, so we should be good.”

“Why don’t you want the moon up?”

“Too much light. If I want to get the stars, I have to set a long exposure, and if the moon’s up, it’ll end up washing out everything around it. I’m probably still going to end up with glow from the campgrounds, but avoiding that requires hiking remote trails in the dark, which wasn’t really the point of this weekend.” And by the way Stiles ducked his head and worried a fingernail into the weathered wood of the picnic table, smiling as pink spread lightly along his cheekbones, Derek was pretty sure he’d figured out _he_ was the point of the weekend, but Derek wasn’t really trying to be subtle.

“Did you bring a laptop?” Stiles suddenly asked.

“Uh, yeah? In case I wanted to download stuff off my camera while we were here. It’s in the car.”

“Cool. Can I borrow it?”

Bemused, Derek retrieved it and handed it over.

“I just…” Stiles clicked around for a second, apparently looking to see where Derek had buried Word, “had an idea for your artist’s statement.” He waved a hand vaguely in the air as if to indicate his idea and then started typing.

Derek just shrugged and busied himself cleaning their bowls and the pot from dinner. When everything was put away again, he reviewed the pictures he’d taken that day. There was nothing so glaringly bad he felt the need to delete it directly from the camera, which he took as a marginally good sign. He looked up and studied Stiles across from him at the table, still absorbed in whatever he was writing. The late afternoon light highlighted the expressive planes of his face, turned a few of errant spikes of his brown hair into gold where they stood up above everything else. He paused in his typing to read back over what he had written and raised a thumb to his mouth to chew on the edge in thought.

Derek raised his camera. It was definitely a view worth capturing, if only for himself.

***

For their sunset expedition, Derek led them to the Cook’s Meadow Loop, which was almost insultingly easy after Four Mile, but there were still good views and he figured they could do with the rest if they were going back out again later anyway.

Stiles was taking pictures of him taking pictures of the scenery, he knew, but since he didn’t seem to be expecting Derek to look at him or smile, he decided to ignore it.

They hit Sentinel Bridge in time for sunset, and Derek laughed at Stiles’ dismay over how many other people were already there. “One of the most popular sunset spots in the park,” Derek said with a shrug. “You’ve been spoiled by the relative lack of crowds all day.”

“Hmph,” was Stiles’ reply, but soon he was distracted enough by the view to forgive the presence of others. Derek alternated between taking pictures of Half Dome (with some good reflections in the water this time) and pictures of Stiles, switching lenses from wide angle to more general use with practiced ease. Stiles noticed, though, of course, and eventually laughed. Derek quickly snapped a shot of that, catching Stiles in profile, with a wide grin, head thrown back, just before Stiles turn to him and said, “Selfie time. I will come away from this trip with _multiple_ pictures of you smiling. I have made it my goal. Even if they are just on my phone.”

Derek didn’t put up much of a fight. Stiles arranged them with Half Dome behind them, him leaning back against Derek’s chest to extend his arm. “Cheese!”

“Cheesy, I think you mean,” Derek said into his ear.

“Maybe.” Stiles turned his head and kissed Derek on the cheek. “But you like me anyway.”

Derek returned the kiss and Stiles, still holding his phone out, caught it in a second shot, which showed Stiles grinning in almost ridiculous happiness and Derek looking like nothing else existed in the world. Maybe “like” wasn’t a strong enough word.

***

They spent the next few hours back at the campsite. Derek hung his electric lantern from the roof and actually just… read a book, stretched out comfortably on his sleeping bag. He realized after a while that, despite this being entirely normal campsite behavior for _him_ , he hadn’t really expected Stiles to be able to spend that much time being quiet. But Stiles was utterly absorbed in whatever he was writing on the laptop, and eventually it was Derek who rolled onto his side and broke the quiet.

“Your job isn’t boring, you know.”

Stiles looked up, blinking as he came back to reality. “What? Yes, it is. It’s technical writing. It’s the definition of boring.”

“I’m not trying to argue it’s scintillating prose, but, like…” Derek grasped for a way to explain it. “The way you explained my own work to me at the gallery.”

Stiles colored. “That was super presumptuous of me, I shouldn’t have—”

“No, Stiles, I’m telling you, it was good. You made me see what was already there. “

“So I explained the obvious. Yes, exactly. See? I told you what I do is boring.”

Derek pushed himself up slightly so he could look at Stiles with more intent. “You really don’t see what a gift it is to be able to make the world clearer to people? To be able to show them what’s right in front of them in a way that really makes them _see_ it? Or changes the way they see it, strips away their preconceptions to see it through your eyes?”

“I—I don’t do that.”

“Sure you do.”

Stiles frowned down at the keyboard. Then his brow cleared and he grinned, a little viciously, as he started typing again.

“What did I say? What are you writing?”

“You’ll see.”

Derek went back to his book until the alarm on his phone went off. He stuck his head out the flap of the tent just to check that it hadn’t clouded over, but when the sky proved to still be clear, he reached back and tapped Stiles on the knee. “C’mon, let’s go.”

“Yeah? You takin’ me stargazing, Der?”

“In the entirely non-euphemistic sense, yes.”

Stiles crawled forward and pulled him in for a kiss. “Mm-hmm. Maybe I can convince you into a little euphemism.”

“Maybe.”

Stiles laughed and started pulling on his boots. “So where are we going?”

“Uh, Tunnel View.”

Stiles looked at him and cocked his head to the side. “Why do you say it like that?”

“Because it’s one of the most photographed views in the whole park and I’m supposed to be this serious professional who would never do something so clichéd.”

“Well, you know I’m not judging. I just want to learn how you actually take pictures of stars!”

And again, Stiles had put him at ease. Derek was starting to think it was a magic power.

He drove them out to overlook, which was unsurprisingly deserted, and set up the tripod, attached the camera, and then fiddled with the settings.

“So what are you doing?” Stiles asked, looking over his shoulder.

“Opening the aperture, setting a 15-second exposure time, pointing it vaguely where I want it.”

“Gee, so technical.”

Derek smiled into the darkness. “That’s the thing about night sky photography. It can end up being kind of a surprise every time. You can’t really see all the detail with the naked eye that you’re likely to capture with the camera, because the camera’s going to be able to collect more light over the length of the exposure, so you just point the camera where you hope it’ll look good, press the button, and wait. Downloading everything later is always fun.”

“Huh.”

And then Derek did just that. He left the camera where it was for the first several shots and tried varying the exposure time to 20 seconds and then 30, then adjusted the tripod and repeated the process.

But in between… In between, he wrapped his arms around Stiles and looked at the stars. It was the least tedious night sky session he'd ever done.

***

The next morning, Derek woke up at his usual early time, opened his eyes, saw Stiles completely cocooned in his sleeping bag with only a tuft of hair sticking out, smiled, and let himself go back to sleep. They had no reason to be up at any particular hour.

Eventually, though, the sounds of other campers talking and slamming car doors intruded enough to really wake them, and then they took their time with breakfast and coffee, sitting side-by-side backwards on the bench so they could lean back against the picnic table as they had their second cups.

“So this is what life is like for you, huh?” Stiles asked.

“Well, not all the time. Sometimes I have to go to annoying meetings, or talk to Laura, or appear at gallery shows where I meet guys with amazing brown eyes who try to tell me about my own art.”

Stiles shoved him with his shoulder. “I like it. I had a really good time this weekend.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

Stiles looked over at him with a quirked eyebrow. “Yeah? Thinking about asking me again?”

“Yes,” Derek replied, nothing but naked honesty on his own face.

Stiles gave him a brilliant smile and leaned over to kiss him.

Derek wanted to ask him to go with him again very soon. Or possibly forever.

After breakfast, they packed up the camp, or at least Derek did, while Stiles sat helpfully out of the way, this time with the laptop, which Derek still hadn’t been allowed to see. They were ready to head back in fairly short order.

Had Derek been alone in the car on the way back to San Francisco, he was sure he would have fallen into melancholy, but Stiles didn’t allow for that. He sang along with the radio, pointed at things out the window, continued conversations they’d started earlier that weekend or even several weeks ago, and reached over to lace his fingers with Derek’s once they were on a long stretch of highway.

When they pulled up in front of Stiles’ building, Derek got out, too, to help Stiles get his bag out of the back. Stiles pushed him back against the Toyota and kissed him thoroughly before he took a few steps back, one hand still holding Derek’s. “So, uh,” he looked down and scuffed the toe of one boot into the sidewalk briefly, “there’s a document. On your laptop. You should look at it when you get home. It’s just called Artist Statement.”

Derek blinked. It always took him days and days to think of anything to say for those. “Like, your ideas? Your notes for me?”

“You’ll see,” Stiles said, and then darted in for one more kiss before heading toward his door. He waved over his shoulder as he went in, and Derek waved back before he, too, got back in the car and headed home.

***

_Artist’s Statement_

_Derek Hale will tell you that he works with images, not words, and in this, he is not wrong. He works with images, and he does so magnificently. With a serious gaze on a face that is actually serenely at peace, if you know what you’re looking for, he considers all that nature has to offer, and then he brings the best of it back to us in the form of enormous, wide, literally breathtaking landscapes._

_He shows us the wonder he sees, strips it down and distills it for us somehow, and then presents in such a way that the viewer feels simultaneously uplifted and very, very small, which, as far as I can tell, is exactly how he feels all the time in the presence of nature._

_But when asked about his work, his immediate instinct is to take himself out of it. Aperture, ISO, shutter speed, these are all things he can describe in great detail, but when asked what he thinks or feels about his work, he flounders, at a loss for words. It wasn’t even until his most recent show in San Francisco that he allowed an image with himself in it to be included. In truth, he initially wanted it taken down. The work was the point, he insisted, not him. But I think what he doesn’t realize is that, in the end, he_ is _the work. That one self-portrait in the show, of the photographer standing in the middle of a snow covered road, looking towards the mountains in quiet, contemplative awe, somehow captures and distills everything,_ everything _that he could possibly say in answer to the question of what he thinks about when producing his work. All you have to do is stand in front of it to feel it down to your own core._

_Because Derek Hale is, at heart, a man who works with images, not words._

***

Derek shut the laptop with shaking hands, then opened it again when he heard his phone buzz with an email notification. Stiles. “To go with the statement,” the message read, and then there was a photo attachment. Derek in profile, lit with perfect golden hour light, camera held comfortably in front of his chest as he considered his next shot. He was all of those things Stiles had described: serious, serene, clearly struck by the scene in front of him, even though he knew he'd been looking at a view he’d seen innumerable times before—it clearly hadn’t mattered.

He sent the document and the photo to Laura.

She called immediately. “Stiles wrote this?”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

“Hire him.”

“What? I can’t hire him.”

“No, I mean, hire him for me. You’re not my only client. I need him on retainer. I mean it. Give me his phone number. Immediately.”

Derek was slightly alarmed. “How about his email address?”

“ _Fine_. Overprotective much?”

“No, just the right amount.”

“Ha ha. But seriously, Der, I think you’ve got this job in the bag now.” He heard her fingernails drumming on her desk in thought. “Send me some of the shots you got this weekend. If they turn out the way I think they will…” She didn’t finish the thought, but he hadn’t really expected her to.

He sent her the shots. He knew it wasn’t actually possible, given that he was using the same camera and shooting many of the same views, but somehow they all seemed to have turned out just a little bit brighter, a little more colorful, a little more… joyful. He included the one of Stiles on top of Glacier Point.

***

Three weeks later, he found himself calling Stiles to ask him to go camping again. He wondered if he should get his own cord to twist around his fingers in these situations.

“Derek?”

“Hi, Stiles. I, uh, I have a question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“Do you want to go to the Andes with me?”

“You got the job?!”

“I got the job.”

“Oh my god, that’s fantastic!”

“Will you come?”

“Wait, are you serious?”

“Yes. Laura really wants you to go.”

“ _Laura_ wants me to go, huh?”

“Well, Laura wants you to go for professional reasons. I just want you to go for me.”

“I just want to go for you, too. But you can tell Laura I will totally take her money.”

Derek laughed.

**Author's Note:**

> It has come to my attention that I should be telling people [I am on the tumblr](http://rhysiana.tumblr.com/).


End file.
